People

‘Once upon a time I moved from Bolton in Manchester, with Mum and Dad and my two sisters Mand and Joo Joo, to Weymouth, when I was six. Dad had got a job as a customs officer at the then working Read more »

I was born in April 1957 here on the farm, at Fairmile, beside the Old Sherborne Road. My father was drilling grass seed that day in a nearby field, in those days of course his presence only being required at Read more »

‘I was born in Redhill, Surrey, near where we lived in a village called Dormansland. My father left us when I was four, when my brother was still a babe in arms. My Mum was Catholic, and was thrown out Read more »

‘I grew up in Cheltenham, the fourth of five children. The musical side of my family comes from my mother’s parents; my grandfather was a music teacher, composer, violinist, organist and conductor whose name was Eric Coleridge, so I use Read more »

‘My parents, Jane Galbraith and Michael Barbour, were born in the early ‘20s and joined the services when war came. My mother became a meteorologist in the WAAF, and my father a submariner in the Navy. They were both keenly Read more »

‘I was born in Rainham, Essex, in a rented 2-up 2-down cottage with the spider-infested toilet out the back and a tin bath in front of the fire on a Friday evening. My mother was second-generation Irish whose family came Read more »

‘I was born in a small fishing town called Katwijk aan Zee in the Netherlands. My family was very religious; there was church twice on Sundays and prayers before and after every meal. The town itself was quite conservative, and Read more »

‘I grew up in Richmond, near London, in a loving musical family. My parents and one sister played fiddles, the others piano and flute, and there was always music, especially at Christmas. I started ukulele at 11 and guitar at Read more »

‘I was brought up in Derbyshire where my family have lived for several hundred years. We have been churchwardens of the village church at Marston-on-Dove, where my elder brother still lives, since 1632 without a break. He will be the Read more »